The superstar Sylvester Stallone confides in social networks. He talks business by returning to the sagas “Rocky” and “Creed,” for which he has no rights, yet he is an excellent businessman.
It was he who created the character of Rocky Balboa. Indeed, like the character he created, Sly started from almost nothing before becoming an incredible movie star. It is necessary to go back to the middle of the ’70s when the actor accumulates anecdotal second roles and is even obliged to turn in an erotic film to pay his bills. After this film, he will also find the nickname of Balboa: The Italian Stallion.
Moreover, during this period, he wrote the famous story of a second-rate boxer who one day has the opportunity to face the heavyweight champion of the world (inspired by the fight between Muhammad Ali and a famous unknown named Chuck Wepner). Eager to play the lead role, he turns down all the producers who only want the script.
Sylvester Stallone met Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, a production team from United Artists. The two men are very interested in the project, and although they are hesitant to put an unknown in the lead, they decide to trust him. They will not be disappointed. The release of Rocky is a worldwide success, making Sly a real star. Financially profitable (225 million dollars of receipts for a budget of 1 million), crowned in the biggest ceremonies, the feature film has become a pop-cultural object.
The Rocky saga then gave rise to five sequels, released between 1979 and 2006, and always with Sylvester Stallone in the role of the boxer. In 2015, Sly passed the baton a little with the arrival of the Creed spin-off. Rocky Balboa thus becomes a secondary character, taking under his wing the son of his best friend, played by Michael B. Jordan.
However, Stallone could be the happiest of men, being the head honcho of a franchise he almost single-handedly created.
Despite everything, according to his statements, the American actor would not have any rights to the saga, while he is an actor, writer and producer of almost all these opuses. Frustration that he now wants to correct. Thus, on Instagram, the 76-year-old man called the producer Irwin Winkler, the current holder of the rights of the license. And like his Rocky character, Sly did not mince his words. Atmosphere:
The producer, Irwin Winkler, still has control of Rocky for 47 years, and now Creed; I would like to get back some of what’s left of my rights, and that’s before he passes everything exclusively to his children. I think that would be an honest gesture from a 93-year-old gentleman, don’t you? It’s a painful subject that eats at my soul because I want to leave something of Rocky to my children.
Sylvester Stallone speaks out on a subject that has already been placed in the public square. Indeed, in 2019, he had already expressed himself on this subject to Variety, wanting to recover part of his rights of Rocky and feeling aggrieved about the shares he had received in some films:
Sylvester Stallone claims to have zero rights to Rocky. Every word, every syllable, every grammatical error is mine. I was told, “You got paid, what are you complaining about?” I was furious.
Since then, he’s been a producer, and he’s a producer on Creed 3 Possible. As an actor, he will be expected on the projects Samaritan, Tulsa King and Expendables 4.
Comment here